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When I was in high school, I took a course in theatre studies. By playing a role in different plays, I experienced different characters’ lives and learned to think from different characters’ perspectives. According to the character intro of each script, we could know about the basic information of each character, such as age, nationality, relationship between other characters and personality. To better indicate each character’s trait, we needed to do research about their culture, accents and occupations. We needed to think about the tone of voice and corresponding actions when speaking a line to demonstrate the character’s characteristic and thinking in a specific scenario. As an actress who didn’t speak English as first language, my engagement with English scripts improved my speaking skills and increased my vocabulary. My interaction with other actors on stage also arose my sense of collaboration.

Children can also learn through dramatic play in early childhood contexts. When children enact various roles and identities, they are able to make sense of their worlds and explore or connect to wider social cultures (Flint & Adams, 2018).  They can also gain new perspectives from the character they play and make meaningful discussions during the play. The book-related dramatic play enhances children's ability to retelling stories through drama, which supports their literacy learning by expanding their ways to create and express meanings and understandings. When children engage with wordless picture books, their responsive play develops their literacy skills by transforming the story ideas from illustrations to oral language and actions. Overall, drama can provide children with a entertaining and engaging experience to foster language development and perspective-taking and imagination skills (Mages, 2018).

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I have a dog named Sukki. She’s a lovely dog and always staying by my side. One day, when I arrived home after class, I found Sukki didn’t welcome me home at the door as usual. Instead, she hid herself in a corner and spied on me. I knew she might do something wrong. When I checked my house, I found a broken cable under the table. When I picked up the cable and approached Sukki, she held her ears back and looked at me with guilty eyes. She tried to step backwards to avoid my blame.

As I can tell Sukki’s scare and guilt through her expressions and behaviors, children are also capable to communicate their emotions and needs through their facial expressions and body languages. Children are effective communicators as they can interact with others verbally and non-verbally (Australian Government Department of Education and Training, 2022). Babie’s smiling, crying and imitating are indications of their levels of interest in engaging with others. It is stated that children have sustained shared conversations from birth, including gestures, expressions and action (Department of Education and Training, 2016). Their first gestures and actions are the foundation of communicative competence. Additionally, the production of children’s facial expressions and body language is essential to their development in emotion recognition, which demonstrates their social and emotional competence (Parker et al., 2013). Emotional understanding skills are also associated with children’s ability in school readiness, language and literacy skills. It is critical for their future healthy social behaviors.

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Nowadays, the living pace of people has become faster with the development of technologies. We always ignore the sounds around us and become less sensitive to the information that sounds convey to us. One day, when I took a city walk to collect different sounds, I found that the pedestrian button could emit a beeping sound at different speeds to indicate the lights. When the traffic light was red, the beeping sound was slow and kind of soft, which is hard to notice. When the traffic light turned green, the beeping sound became loud and rapid. I realized that even if we didn’t look at the traffic lights, we could have ideas on whether it was safe to cross the road by listening to the sound made by the pedestrian buttons.

My experience demonstrates that we can gain a range of information through listening carefully to the sounds in our everyday life. Deep listening is a way to connect us with the acoustic environment (Oliveros, 2021). It provides children with an opportunity to explore the relationships among all natural or technological, intended or unintended sounds with thoughts. Listening requires a deep awareness and a suspension of judgements and prejudices (Edwards et al., 2011). Being open to unknowns and differences allows children to enrich their knowledge and develop vital skills such as communication and collaboration. In the indigenous perspective, they learn white man’s culture by listening and hope that the fellow Australians can take time to listen to them (Ungunmerr, 1988). They believe that simultaneous learning and listening brings understanding and respect to different cultures.

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Keeping eye contact with children when communicating to show attention. Smiling at children to provide them with a comfortable communicating environment. Be sensitive to children’s emotions and respond in an appropriate and attuned way. Using different voice of tones, gestures and expressions when telling a story.

Applying gestures when communicating with children:

·       Waving hands when greeting or saying goodbye

·       Nodding heads when saying yes

·       Shaking heads when saying no

·       Pointing to objects

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When I took the field trip in Footscray Library, I found lots of signs along the way. The signs showed us the rules of the area without verbal communications. The graph, accompanied by the written texts, clearly indicates that dogs and smoking are not allowed in this area and bicycles are not permitted to park in this street. For people who don’t understand the English texts, they can still understand the rules by the graphs.

Signs are common examples of prints in our daily life. The concept of print is critical to children’s emergent literacy. It can be identified as “a set of rules” to make the texts understood by the readers in intended ways (State Government of Victoria, 2013). The main elements of concepts of print include the concept of texts, concept of book, directionality of print, mechanical features and alphabet knowledge. Children’s understanding in these concepts enhances their ability in reading and writing, which further develops their competence in receiving and conveying messages through texts. By engaging with the print materials, children are encouraged to explore texts from different perspectives and analyse the meanings (Department of Education and Training, 2016). Their awareness of the relationship between oral, written and visual representations can also be improved. Additionally, when children pay attention to sound structures of words during reading, it promotes their phonological awareness and develops their knowledge of sound-letter patterns.

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I was inspired by the indigenous painting style that they can show their own culture elements through painting with dots and lines. I decided to recombine the dots and lines to create my own artwork. Dots in the aboriginal culture imply an energy field or powerful aura (Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery, 2023).  I painted three large black circles with red dots inside to demonstrate three energy fields. I connected them with curved lines to make powerful connections between the separated energy fields. The pattern I used to connect the circle in the upper-left corner and the circle in the middle of the drawing indicated waterfalls. The two lines originated from the middle circle to the bottom of the page indicated hills. The meaning of my painting was that people gain energy from water and the land.

As dots and lines can represent different meanings in different cultures, visual arts such as painting can be used as a technique of communication (Australian Government Department of Education and Training, 2022). Children are effective communicators because they are able to communicate their ideas, thinking and concepts through painting. By expressing their own perspective of the world in imaginative and relational ways, children can construct meanings and understandings in patterns and symbols that they engage with (Pelo, 2016). As paint can generate insights, problems and disruptions, children’s engagement with paint also provides them an opportunity to develop persistence, problem-solving skills, flexibility and creativity. Paint is something to think instead of a tool to develop children’s sensory skills (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2016). The assemblage of human and non-human components during the painting process allows children to explore the capability and possibility of both the materials and themselves.

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My experience of playing with clay is fun and experimental. To investigate the capability of clay, I rolled it into threads, pressed it into a slice, and threw it on the ground to test what shape it could form. I found the plasticity of clay depended on its water content. When the clay was soft, it was easy to manipulate. But if it was too soft, the clay thread was easy to break. When the clay became dry, it took me more force to change its shape. Cracks also appeared on the clay surface. I put a piece of clay in the water and found it became muddy and sticky. It stuck on my hands, which was hard to clean. I put another piece of clay on fire. It bursted and made sparks. The colour of the clay became lighter after being burnt and the surface became extremely hard.

My experiment with clay leads my attention to clay’s specificities in different environments. The different responses of clay remind me of the idea that working with clay is to think about clay’s relation with a milieu (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2016). In the early childhood context, children’s awareness of the changing behaviors of clay can also connect them with the surrounding environment. The connection enhances their sense of belonging to the ecology. It also leads them to think about the cause of clay’s response, which develops their understanding of clay’s demands.  Additionally, when manipulating clay, children’s fine motor skills can be developed. The unpredictable response of clay invites children to work with clay’s problems and explore how to work against them (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2016). It practices children’s problem-solving skills.

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This song is called the animal sounds song, which indicates the different sounds that a range of animals make. For my future practice, I would like to ask the children to listen and collect different sounds of animals or other things in their everyday lives, and change the lyrics into their collections of sounds. For example, the pigeon goes coo, coo, coo, coo; the car goes vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

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In my future practice, I would like to provide children with a chance to engage with picture books. I will read aloud the texts to enhance their understanding between the oral and written texts. The pictures can also be helpful for children to make meanings of the texts. As children in different age groups have different levels of reading skills, I would choose picture books with an appropriate level of difficulty to ensure their understanding.

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For children aged 2-3 years old, I would choose this book. The book talks about an interesting story of a dog, which can trigger children’s interest. The sentences are not too long and there are not many complex vocabularies. The large pictures with detailed facial expressions of characters make the story easier for the children to understand.

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In my future practice, I would like to conduct painting activities. I will provide the children with watercolours, brushes and paper. I will also provide them with loose parts that they can paint on or use them to create patterns. I will encourage children to explore different painting techniques and materials to enhance their creativity and imagination. I will encourage children to display and introduce their artworks to peers to develop their self-expression skills.

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In my future practice, I will select an engaging story book with interesting characters in it. I’ll read the story with children together and encourage them to act out the story. I’ll make some props or tags to represent different characters. I will also provide them with a chance to play different roles to better understand the ideas of the story from different characters’ perspectives.

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The concept of “the hundred languages of children” is originated from Reggio Emilia’s educational approach (Edwards et al., 2011). It highlights the idea that children are able to communicate their ideas, thoughts and emotions not only through spoken language, but also through various ways such as visual arts, music and play. With the engagement of a range of materials, children are able to explore the world around them and develop different skills in expressing themselves. By understanding the languages of children, educators can create a supportive learning environment for children and make children’s learning experiences meaningful and engaging.

This journal focuses on 6 main concepts, facial expressions and body language, deep listening, prints, painting, clay and drama. Facial expressions and body language are the most obvious indications of children’s emotions and attitudes. Deep listening is a crucial skill for children to gain different information from the sonic environment. Children’s understanding of concepts of print enables their emergent literacy skills. Their engagement with paints and clay allows them to practice their imagination and creativity. It also provides them a chance to consider arts as a way of thinking and making meanings. Drama is important for children’s development in language and cognitive skills.

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Before making objects with clay, I would like the children to explore clay’s properties first. I will encourage them to feel clay’s hardness and textures. They are also encouraged to make marks on clay with different body parts. Then, I will encourage them to manipulate clay with different objects and explore how the clay responds. At last, they are encouraged to make clay into objects according to their creativity and imagination.

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The journal talks about six aspects of children’s language and communication in the early childhood contexts. Children are able to communicate their needs and thinking verbally and non-verbally. Their facial expressions and body language from birth is the basis of their communicative competence. It also contributes to their development in emotion recognition, which is the foundation of their future social competence.  Deep listening allows children to make connections with the acoustic environment. By listening to others’ perspectives, communication and collaboration skills can be developed. Listening also helps children to foster cultural understanding and respect. Children’s understanding of concepts of print is the foundation of their literacy development. Children’s engagement of print materials enhances their understanding in those concepts, which is helpful for them to explore the meanings of texts, patterns and symbols. It also develops their awareness in conveying messages through oral, written and visual representations. Drama connects children with different cultures and perspectives. Their language development and literacy skills can also be enhanced when they retell stories through performing. Paints and clay allow children to explore the capability and possibility of different materials. The challenges children encounter when exploring these materials help them develop problem-solving and independent thinking skills. Their imagination and creativity can also be enhanced when engaging with these materials.

In my future practice, I will provide children with opportunities to engage with a range of materials. They are encouraged to explore their potentials and self-identity through the participation of different play experiences. They are encouraged to express their perspectives and ideas freely through various ways. By creating a supportive and entertaining learning environment, children are able to develop a range of skills that lay a foundation for their future growth and well-being.